Novel
Krutsifiks
Not translated into English
Karl Rumor · 1960
Synopsis
In the interior of Brazil, at the end of the nineteenth century, Antenor, a man drawn to prophetic speech, and Mario, his Black companion, are swept into a religious movement that spreads from place to place. Ever more numerous followers gather behind a spiritual leader whom they listen to as a messiah, penances and visions multiply, and those who lead the crowd learn to make use of it, while the authorities of the republic grow uneasy at this fervour.
Context
Rumor took at least ten years to write this novel, his only one, during his years as consul in Brazil; it appeared in 1960 in Lund, Sweden, from the cooperative of Estonian writers in exile. It transposes the War of Canudos, in which the Brazilian army crushed, from 1895 to 1898, a religious community gathered around its leader, and draws heavily on Os Sertões by Euclides da Cunha. Judged too disconcerting by most readers in exile, it appeared in Estonia only in 1989.
Who it is for
Nearly four hundred pages in Estonian, never translated into French or English. It helps to know that the real history of Canudos is transposed in it under invented names.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as his principal work and as one of the most accomplished of Estonian literature in exile, this novel nevertheless remained on the margins of the canon.